INTRODUCTION xxv 



Ocean, must feel still greater difficulty in admitting 

 the claims of any American members of this family 

 to a place in the British list : and yet there are 

 records of the capture of no less than three different 

 species in England {vide pp. 398, 399), all of which 

 are inhabitants of the New World. 



In attempting to ascertain the claims of such 

 species as these to be admitted in a list of British 

 birds, there are two difficulties which constantly 

 beset the conscientious historian who meets with 

 records of their capture here. These are : first, the 

 published communications of over-zealous collectors, 

 who, anxious to record their possession of a species 

 which they deem rare, hasten to give it a name 

 before they have satisfactorily identified it ; and, 

 secondly, the results of the many attempts which 

 unscrupulous dealers make (unfortunately too often 

 with success) to palm off foreign species upon un- 

 wary collectors, with the assurance that they have 

 been killed in some part or other of the British 

 Islands. There can be little doubt that many of 

 such records, to which of necessity reference has 

 been made in the second part of this work, are, 

 for the reasons above mentioned, worthless, although 

 perhaps originally published in perfect good faith 

 by the owners of the specimens. It has been 

 practically impossible, through lapse of time, death 

 of parties, or ignorance of their addresses, to test 

 the value of every reported occurrence of rare visi- 

 tants ; yet, whenever this was possible, it has been 



